A Broken Crow

2008-03-22T17:32:00.002-03:00

In my dream last night there was a party at my parents' house. someone had created a water pathway from the driveway into the house, with a small boat to carry people in. My mother will be angry, I thought, except she was too busy tending to her new tattoos with her new friends. They were scientists and laughed at me when nothing was funny. All of my friends went swimming even though there was snow on the ground. It's so warm. It's bath water. It's blood. By the time I got to them they were finished and no one would wait. I wanted to swim too. They told me that I couldn't go because there was cancer in the water and they scientists were treating it tomorrow. I looked back towards the house and I could hear them all laughing.

2008-02-21T19:03:00.000-04:00

oh, hello again.

we had a break, you and I. I got so sick, I couldn't even look at you. so much shame.
it's different now.
things will be different.
give me your hand.

new leaf

2007-05-13T16:48:00.001-03:00

that's it. no more. i don't want this feeling ever again.

Palm Sunday

2007-04-01T18:33:00.000-03:00

i watched them walking by in pairs. a slow shuffle. their sunday best. weathered knuckles and long fingers clasped around the palms that they held out in front of them like flashlights in the dark. my brain flooded with memories. a myriad of obscured, fading snapshots from a time before my mother could no longer reconcile her differences with the catholic faith. my blue dress with the white flowers. my legs swinging impatiently. the run in my stockings. me leaning forward to touch the hymnal, my tiny fingers fanning through thin, glossy pages, edged in gold. counting the spring season church hats, dusty and squashed-looking, smelling of musk and mothballs. they always gave me a palm. i would run out into the parking lot without my coat and let the new april air chill me. i would wave my palm over my head and watch the sky peek cornflower blue through the vibrant, green stalks. i would let the grasses drag on the ground behind me to hear the whisper of dust and gravel. a sound like a scratched throat. after church, i would always hang my palm to dry in my room, the green turning yellow, then brown and crisp. pieces of grass would crumble and gather on the carpet like old skin. my mother would come in days later and throw it away.

2007-03-20T16:53:00.000-03:00

"i won't go lightly."

her voice is venomous. she spits at the ground emphatically.

"i want my name on their fucking lips until the last second. until it's over."

she swells and staggers over the city. her eyes are cold gray, metallic and storming. and she howls ice and snow from her mouth. and she screams until the trees bend to her. she buries feet and lashes at faces until we know the rage she feels at her dying. even though she must. even though the stories cycle through the same old pages like clockwork.

you pierce through her squalling with your eyes. vivid blue, smooth as honey. you split her like a walnut and leave her empty husks spinning on soft, wet ground. we are stunned and stumbling, panting like dogs and staring into the sun like the face of a stranger. we are raw before you. our new, pink skin stings under your breath. we are ready.

2007-03-18T18:40:00.000-03:00

i'm spinning even when i'm sitting down.
and i think...
it all happens too fast for me to recognize the names and faces. i can dig a new hole to lay in. i can talk about the same four hours for four days without running out of ways to change my mind. i can shut all the doors and still hear that song playing over and over.

2007-03-04T09:08:00.000-04:00

I have been on this train for hours.
(I check my watch. I have been on this train for 47 minutes.)

The flourescent lights in the lounge won't stop fluttering. Insect wings. The eyelids of a drunk about to pass out. My head is leaning against the window, rattling off an absurd morse code on the glass. If I let my eyes unfocus, the scenery shifts into blurred, muted lines. A long streak of watercolour across dirty snow.

I've been waiting patiently for the evening movie, hoping like hell that it involves neither animation, heroic animals, or Tim Allen. The snack car lady is oblivious to my presence and continues to flirt with the fat man at her counter. She has a speech impediment and laughs in loud, strained guffaws.

I have been on this train for hours and hours and hours.
(Please just put the motherfucking movie on.)

This is not the train I remember from years ago, those weeks when we were beautiful weirdos, professional voyeurs. Back then the train was full of drifters and degenerates. Craggy-faced men with impossibly large belt buckles who opted for a much longer journey just so they could smoke. There was a woman with electric coral lipstick that smeared down her chin and reached up to colour the underside of her nose. I saw her one day, order three cups of noodles in a row and just play with them, letting her cigarette ash drop into the broth until it was tepid and gray. Dirty puddle water full of lifeless worms.

My head slams against the window.
I have been on this train for days.

The movie will be Superman Returns and I am pleasantly surprised. Almost excited. The movie starts and for twenty blissful minutes i forget. I am not on a train. I am not alone. I am not depressed. A group of five enters the lounge and cluster around the table across from me. Two boys and three girls that look about twenty. They dig inside plastic bags and discuss the merits of beer drunk versus tequila drunk. Loudly. The girl with the curly hair speaks only in high-pitched giggles. She keeps gathering up her curly locks and piling them on top of her head. She frowns like she doesn't understand what to do, and then with an especially shrill titter, lets her unruly hair cascade over her shoulders again. pile. frown. giggle. cascade. repeat. repeat. repeat. the boy in the black jeans taps my shoulder every two minutes to have dialogue repeated. It doesn't take me long to realize that these people did not come to watch the movie. They came to torture me. They chat with enthusiasm. They laugh like hyenas. Three of them are not even facing the screen. I try to stare at them with eyes full of fire and knives, but the boy in the black jeans assumes that this means I wish to share my opinion on the tequila/beer debate, which has now endured a third of a movie. I scowl and twist away from them. I shift uncomfortably in my seat, as though my growing rage blossoms in lumps and tumours beneath me.

I try to watch the movie but I can't. I entertain myself instead with an elaborate violent fantasy. I imagine that I am a zombie. I rise from my seat in the lounge, stiff-limbed and groaning. I stand over their table and they are finally silenced. They're probably wondering how they didn't notice my lifeless, milky eyes, my sallow skin, my rotting flesh. I go for the boy in the black jeans first. After eating his brain I am not satisfied. No surprise there. I grab the girl with the curly hair. She's not giggling now. I eat her brain too and it's equally small. Now the rest are screaming. They scramble over the tables and chairs to get to the door. Snack lady comes at me with the fire extinguisher and blasts me full-force in the face. Some of my teeth fall out, hitting the floor and scuttling away like misshapen marbles. I stumble blindly into the passenger cars, screeching with anger and blood lust. My smile drips red onto dusty blue carpet.

The boy is tapping me again.
I imagine breaking off his fingers and using them to choke giggly girl.

"What did that guy just say? What's going on now? Can you catch me up?"

I am dumbfounded. I wonder how this person functions on a daily basis. I want to ignore him, but I decide to answer him anyway.

"It's not such a tricky concept, really. Lex Luther? He's bad. And Superman? He's good. That's makes them enemies. Lois Lane is in love with Superman, but too proud to admit it. You see, Superman left her all alone. He went away for a few years, but now, he's back! I know this last idea might have been easy to miss if you didn't read the title of the film, but that's okay. I would much rather explain the movie to you and your friends than watch it myself. If you have any other problems, don't hesitate to ask."

My voice drips with icy sarcasm. I hear them call me a bitch as they pack up their food and leave the lounge. I should feel triumphant but I don't. I know it isn't really their rude behaviour that infuriates me, it's the ease of their joy. The movie ends and I return to my seat. I rest my forehead against the cool glass and watch a monochromatic landscape slip by. The snow is dirty icing, cracked white lips with brittle grass piercing through. All of the movement of the warmer months has been stalled, caked in cold mud and documented in frozen shoe prints. I stare out the window until night makes it too dark to see, and forces my attention back inside the train.

I have been on this train for years.
(I have been on this train for five hours, but without you, there's no difference.)

five things people have said that were meant to be heartfelt and compassionate but sadly missed the mark.

2007-02-28T00:06:00.000-04:00

1) "the lord works in mysterious ways." (it's not so much the religion in this that offends me, it's the cliche. it's like comforting someone with a marketing slogan or a really shitty proverb. we are so sorry for your loss, dear. good good whole wheat shreddies are worth two in the bush.)

2) "well, i guess you're not looking forward to christmas this year." (well not now you tactless, blathering fool. i was almost kinda flirting with the idea of christmas spirit, but i guess christmas spirits will have to do.)

3) "hey! it wasn't your boyfriend who died was it?!" (this was asked of me while i was in the middle of serving a line-up twenty people deep. this is what happens when grown men spend their entire lives communicating with machines and not people. this man now gets decaf coffee no matter what he asks for.)

4) "it's hard being alone, isn't it? you were so needed for so long and now you're not and you're all by yourself." (i have no idea how this could ever be conceived as a sensitive or compassionate thing to say to anyone at any time. the great part is that this one came from my grandmother.)

5) "well kathryn, let's hope 2007 is a little better for you than 2006." (what the fuck? gee, you think?! this was said within the first hour of my first shift back full-time, by the same gentleman who gave us number two. his social skills are a black hole that normal thoughts get sucked into. yipes. just yipes.)

love letters, lost nights.

2007-02-25T10:10:00.000-04:00

dear halifax,

what happened to us?

we used to be lovers and now i don't know your face. i drag my feet across your frozen skin and feel nothing from you. nothing in me. we had secrets pockets of space and time. we had frantic laughs and dreamy east coast eyes. all the lights have gone out between us. my hands curl into claws when we touch.

remember when we were rockstars? you would fill my head with noise and i'd scramble over your hills and pathways, my breath swimming in front of my face like a ghost. you spread yourself lovingly like a sheet, with a million pin pricks for the light to shine through, and never minding the tatters that come with serious committment. you weren't like the others. you weren't shy when we met that first night (you saw me from across the room at the party, you stalked me like a hunter, you grabbed hold of my face and burned me with one look, you spun me around, screaming with laughter and i was done. i was yours). after that night i was invited to explore every inch of your body. the tickle trunk. the marquee. the khyber. stage nine. i came to all your parties. you had so many friends that i felt insecure at first, but you always had ways of letting me know that i was the one. i was childish and introspective, but none of these petty nuances mattered when the music played. you would let music fill every breath, every pore, rolling over waves of ecstasy as you swallowed the notes. and when you could no longer be filled, when you could endure no more pleasure, you would burst, spilling out melodies in torrents. i remember how the guitars cried and how the drums shook the floor and how i would clutch my own face for fear that your sweet symphonic eruptions would split me down the middle. when it was all over you would collapse with the sound of a redwood falling and i would carry you home. the cool night air would dance along the curve of your mouth.

now our nights are empty. you've shut your doors, one by one, and packed your masks away in great dusty boxes. your music is dying. all the notes turn sour in the air and then are silenced. i look at you and i see you look away. i touch you and it makes me feel ashamed. there are novels of words that we aren't saying to one another. is this a desperate cry for attention? is this a game to you? is it really over? maybe we drank too much that summer. we spent hours on the waterfront, our legs swinging over the pier, our heads full of drugs, lolling on our necks like sleepy-eyed infants. maybe we said too much too soon. all the words start like snowflakes but become honed projectiles that whittle us away, one letter at a time.

we tore each other apart and we can't fix it.

most nights i find myself alone, scraping together my last ragged notes to make a song that plays like a patchwork quilt. i've stopped wondering where you are and i don't expect you to come home to me. i've heard the whispers from your battered battalion of ex-lovers. they speak of you in a dead language, sentences like dried mud crumbling. birdland. misty moon. the green bean. there were so many before me whose existence i watered down with pretense and debauchery. i was supposed to be different but now i find myself among their loathesome ranks, haggard and wheezing, fingering ticket stubs and stolen trinkets, wondering what i'd say if you called. i did this to myself. i willed myself into believing that we had something honest.

these landmarks that don't exist

2007-02-11T16:06:00.000-04:00

the calander tells me that it has been four months today. four months, which is how many weeks, which is how many days, which really boils down to moments. these measurements are nothing when all you feel is now now now now. you're not here now. you're not here now and i still can't fathom how this tricky beast called time will change anything in me.

(again, that pregnant pause in which i don't know whether i can still call you my boyfriend in casual conversation. there are no qualifiers that come easily and these semantics leave a bitter taste in my mouth.)

you and i are scared children pretending to be adults. such a precious pantomime. we talk about the importance of good food and the necessary forms and what i will do when you are gone. we talk about healing and breaking down. we talk about time even though we don't understand it. even though it rapes us. we talk about god.

(the day you died, i told your mother that you believed in everything because i heard such fear behind the question. i told her you were in heaven. i lied because she loves you in ways that are impossible.)

yesterday i listened to your voice on the answering machine for the first time and it sounded different than i remembered. your sentences are tired and stripped away. were your words always so ragged, or do i filter the past through the shock and suffering that comes with knowledge? I left you a whispered i love you and imagined that we could have secret channels of communication untouched by the unbearable sickness.

(and it occurs to me, from time to time, that we said everything except goodbye.)

out of the blue and into the black

2007-01-30T17:21:00.001-04:00

this one will be mine. the dark, sleepy drive through the mud flats and hay fields, barren and cold these months. the seats smelling of dust and other bodies, and the wheels drumming a soft percussion to my warbled twang. the windows are marked with fingers and faces, pressed against the rattling panes, asleep through the churning machinery. i will not sleep. i will be a creature of night, prowling the cars for something beyond these self-reflexive murmers. these vehicles are beasts beneath us. a slick, aluminium snake that sparkles as it passes the water. it carries me while the rest of you are dreaming.

2007-01-18T23:25:00.000-04:00

is it the chemical or the fire in my belly that makes these dulcet, basement tones sound sweeter than they should? cold fingers and worn strings and me laughing through the smoke. she sits beside me with the accordian wheezing in her lap. her voice is wet and husky and creeps about the room like a ghost. she passes me a joint and then a guitar and my old bones settle in to play a few songs before the sun comes up. i sing and my voices hangs in the air, thick and damp. the dust on the pipes glitters from the glow of cigarettes and i clench my jaw to keep it from chattering. i sing and their eyes glint like jewels.

2007-01-16T19:59:00.000-04:00

if you were here right now you would tell me that i'm doing everything i can do. you would squeeze the back of my neck and scratch my head. you would be proud of me like you always were.

it all comes back eventually. i don't write for months. a dry year. and now all the words fall out of my mouth without warning. all those dusty pebbles that scatter. i've been up late every night, cradling my new guitar, writing clumsy songs for you. i've been scheming lofty plans for myself and dreaming of music. and who fucking knew, after so many years, that i would want to do this now? me and francine up on the stage, while ellis and i take the back roads. he's my beaten down war soldier and he knows more about me than my mother. my love leaves scars across the body. wherever we end up, i'll take you. enclosed in copper. beneath my skin.

this was unexpected.

2007-01-14T01:04:00.000-04:00

so i bought this today.

2007-01-13T01:05:00.000-04:00

these are baby steps.

when everything i do is the first time without you.
i can't imagine beauty or laughter or joy except for those feelings that twist inside of me.
there are steps in this dance that have to be followed for people to feel okay about me. i know this. and i wonder sometimes if it would have been easier the other way around, but i love you too much to wish this for you. because oh god i am so scared to be alone and oh god i am so scared to be close to anyone and oh god i am so scared of love and oh god i am so scared of never being loved like you loved me.

i'm so angry. i look around and all i see are the people that got to live. no one can make it better, because this life is brutal and random and short. i just want to see you. i just want to touch you. and when i scream i want you to fucking hear me.

2007-01-01T14:14:00.000-04:00

holy shit.

it's new years day and i haven't stopped since i got here. wednesday, dec. 27th, i tagged along to the weekly jam session. i consumed. thursday, dec. 28th, i went to bunker's with mike and chris and shamus. i experienced the tom fun orchestra and casino food at three in the morning. i consumed. friday i went to the upstairs and then bunkers again. everyone in cars and the lighthouse choir. met up with the other mike, tom and others. (i would like to add that tom is a lovely person and not at all a narcissist as may have been suggessted jokingly in an early blog post.) i consumed. i consumed. i consumed. i got home and sang blind melon songs in the basement with jason and laura until four in the morning. saturday night. new years eve eve. i tried to take it a little easier. went to the upstairs for a song writers' circle. the music was beautiful, tortured country twang. i nursed a few beer and went home to another impromtu set of music in the living room until the wee hours of the morning. two guitars, accordian and spoons. this kind of shit does not happen too often in halifax, let me tell you. last night was the big one. a house party on union street with a ton of friendly strangers. i got extra-special sketchy and got familiar with whiskey again. i sang my heart out in the bedroom. i hugged everyone. i walked home across the train tracks with the wind ripping through me. today there is prime rib roast and the promise of a low key evening. i can't consume anymore. i've been consumed entirely, but man oh man, sydney treats me fucking well.

i'm coming home tomorrow night on the shuttle. i should be home soon after ten and then is back to work the very next afternoon.

mike gillis, if you're still in halifax the night of january 2nd, give me a call.

2006-12-19T00:22:00.000-04:00

we used to have dates in the hospital. i would bring a movie and treats from the outside world. we'd close the door over and ignore the phone. sometimes i would crawl in next to you, carefully maneuvering tubes and wires. i would rest my head against your chest and listen to your heart beat - soft, percussive, a watch ticking underwater. those were the nights that i would stay there all night with you, crumpled on the warped cot, listening to the drone of machinery mixed with regular breathing. i remember waking up to the feeling of your hand against my cheek, my neck. you would reach across in the dark and stroke my hair, and i would pretend to be asleep for fear that you might stop. those were the nights that you would tell me, over and over again how much you loved me. how special i was. how lucky you were.

(i fucking hate past tense. you are. i am. we are. i do. you will always exist in present tense to me.)

a grief counsellor called from the hospital today, but i didn't want to talk. i'm not ready for anything constrcutive yet. i'm still destructing. i can't pick up the pieces until they're all laid out in front of me.

2006-12-14T21:25:00.000-04:00

tonight was the st. pat's fashion show and it seems that i've returned from the throngs of disorganized, gum popping minors relatively unscathed. they bought me flowers for helping them. aw.

i had a mini-spa day in my own apartment this morning. i had a long bubble bath. i tried out my new expensive, exfoliating mango scrub and scratchy scrubbing gloves. i also used my new ginger-cinnamon body cream that makes your skin go hot and cold at the same time. kind of tingly and numb, but in a good way. i gave myself a pedicure, but not a manicure because i play guitar and therefore manicures are dumb. it wasn't a bad way to spend time alone, i have to say. especially since i was listening to my new cds. The Kinks - are the village green preservation society, and Joni Mitchell - Blue (a fucking classic. if you don't have it, go buy it right now.)

(when i go out, i leave the christmas lights on for you, even though it probably runs up the power bill. you used to nap on the couch under fleece blankets. every so often you would wake up and smile because the lights made you feel warm.)

missing you makes me miss my friends that i don't see often enough. being separated by school or work or distance never bothered me before, but all of a sudden, there are holes in the fabric big enough to put my fist through. erin comes in four days, mike comes in a week. i can't wait to see them. hey sketchbag, let's drink jager until they kick us out. let's walk home screaming theatrics. let's watch The Warriors at four in the morning.

(because most of all i mind these nights alone. when the social outreach retires to its own bedrooms and everyone has another set of arms and legs and lips except for me. sleeping is sleeping next to you. living is living for you. i don't know what to call what i'm doing now, this strange suspension. all the pressure that builds up before the levee breaks.)

2006-12-12T14:17:00.000-04:00

Today was productive.
I delivered some old essays and forms for my reference letters to two professors.
I put in my form to get copies of my transcript.
I paid my eastlink bill.
I cleaned my apartment. again.

(I bought mini, rainbow christmas lights to hang in the apartment because you would have loved them. I'm trying so fucking hard to get my life together, despite how wrong it feels sometimes. If you could have seen me this morning, you would have been so proud.)

2006-12-11T11:40:00.000-04:00

two months now.
i still watch the door like you're going to come through it. i wear your sweater and i touch your things hoping that they'll reveal something new. i wonder if i'll ever be able to write about you without writing to you. i wonder if all of my stories are destined to be yours.

i had to leave last night. the conversation had inexplicably turned to hollywood mustaches, and i was about to tell someone that you owned a t-shirt with tom selleck's face on it, but i couldn't. i was stuck on the inability to refer to you in the past tense, and the impossibility of calling you anything other than my boyfriend. you'll never be an "ex" anything. that negation suggests something completely untrue. our relationship didn't end on its own terms, so where does that leave us? where does that leave me? what happens to the stories now that the person i'm in love with is dead? how can i talk about you? how can i not talk about you?

i'm not well today. i have to work at the killam tonight and it's going to destroy me. i'm not fit to be with people.

2006-12-08T14:07:00.000-04:00

my mom took me to a spa this morning, to have what is referred to as a "salt glow". basically, this entails stripping down nude while a strange woman exfoliates your entire body with a blend of salts and then massages you with ginger-cinnamon body cream. despite the semi-public nudity and the rubbing of grit into my skin, this was strangely satisfying and very relaxing.

...and let me tell you. i am a delicate rose petal. i am a little silk bunny. it's a fucking tragedy that there is no boy to enjoy how soft my skin is right now. who wants to come touch me?

also, i booked my shuttles to and from sydney after christmas, i should be arriving on December 27th, sometime in the early afternoon. booyah.

2006-12-05T22:57:00.000-04:00

if this were simple, it wouldn't be true.
because i need you. all of you. together and on your own.
each of you understand some different, but together, it's almost whole. almost.
he got me. he saw me. he finished the picture.

(i want to tell you how much i miss you and i can't. i want to tell you how much i regret not kissing you that day while you still knew what was happening.)

2006-12-02T10:09:00.000-04:00

at first it was him, peddler of love and hope. he came and filled my chest with light. he had me briefly in his hand and i was ready to be whole.

but then she, beautiful cynic, tortured saint, called in the darkness that waits in the wings. she reminded me of emptiness in minor chords. a voice that haunts and teeters on the blade of a knife. i love you the most, but we don't believe in such silly notions anymore, do we? we have lived and we know better. we all lose in the end.

the night was for forgetting. the night was for whiskey and candles and whorish lipstick. i am garish and cheap in the light so keep me in darkness. i danced between speakers and laughed a laugh that was not mine. i looked for you in the crowd because i always do. your face is a beacon. it is a key to something i'll never be able to open without you. seeing your name sucked the air out of me. i sat in the bathroom, my fingertips pressed into my eyes, biting down into my palms, heaving. no. no. no. it's always going to be this. those seconds when everything is suddenly in the room with me and i'm crushed under its weight. those little surprises that should feel good but rip me open.

i got home, soaked with rain, heels bleeding. i curled around you like a question mark. i clutched at cold metal and tried to remember warm skin.

2006-11-29T13:02:00.000-04:00

so it's the end of day two of fundraising for St. Pat's fashion show. i've visited over thirty stores on quinpool and downtown and met with mostly positive feedback. the majority of stores want to take your official letter and get back to you, but a few places are willing to give right away. here is what i've scrounged up in two days:

One green gem stone beaded necklace - $15.00 value (Bead's 'R' Us)
One Gift Certificate for two waffle cones - $10.00 value (Dio Mio)
One Gift Card for coffee and snacks - $10.00 value (Timothy's)
One beaded bracelet and belt set - $23.00 value (Black Market)

it's not a bad start, but i need a lot more. if anybody has any pull at all with any retail or service location in the city, please help me out with some sort of prize. i will love you forever.

2006-11-28T08:35:00.000-04:00

i can feel you sleeping next to me. i can smell your skin on the sheets, no matter how much i wash them. when i dream, you're alive and i can taste your kiss on my mouth.

sometimes i still catch myself rushing to get home to you if i've been gone during the day. my step quickens and then i remember that no one is waiting. i break my own heart every time.

jesus.
wretched.
fucking.
pain.

there are no words anymore.

2006-11-26T15:53:00.000-04:00

Blablabla would everyone be quiet
The machine has come between me and my love
It's hopeful but doubtful for tomorrow
so pour me up another before bed


Lady love has only seen me crying
and the nights are for forgetting who I am
but singing is always easy when you're drinkin'
so pour me up another before bed


If you would take and embrace me in your arms
I would stay and dedicate my heart
watch you go when the day breaks
so pour me up another before bed
pour me up another before bed

2006-11-24T08:29:00.000-04:00

i cried so hard last night after i got home.
i wanted to be sick. it hurt so much i wanted to be sick. and now i'm up and preparing for another day at work. i put on my make up and i pretend, all the while i'm writhing in my own fucking skin because i want so badly to not be me.

fuck this. i'm so tired of being fucked up. this time i didn't do it to myself and it isn't fair.

i'm working until 5:30pm and i'm going to the HotShotRobot cd release party at stage nine tonight. join me if you want.

2006-11-22T22:45:00.000-04:00

it's been over a month now since you left.
the insomnia seemed almost managable until i started covering shifts at work. in three days, i've had less than eight hours of sleep. sometimes i spend hours just staring at ceiling, thinking about things i'd like to say to you.

(do you know that i used to believe that love was strong enough?)

lately i'm having trouble hearing people. sometimes i feel like i can't see clearly. maybe i'm just not listening. maybe i'm just not really looking. at night i wander around our apartment touching your things and in the day i'm numb and detached. it's not my hands that perform those tasks. it isn't me standing here. this isn't really my life.

(do you know that i thought my love would save you?)

all of these thoughts are unfinished, like us. all of my words are broken.

2006-11-20T19:51:00.000-04:00

i don't know anything anymore.
or maybe i know everything and it's just that there's nothing worth knowing.
i don't want to smile anymore, because you made me smile the most.
i don't want to sleep because i slept next to you.
i don't want to cry. i don't.
crying only leads to sleep and sleep to waking up with a realization that feels like a sledgehammer to my stomach. i hate this. i hate this world without you. it's dirty and cold and sick.

i can set aside a part of me that's only for you. i can mark myself forever, but it won't bring me any sense of closure. it doesn't make me miss you less, it makes me love you more. i don't know if i can keep my promise. the days are slow and the nights are so dark. so dark.

2006-11-18T15:55:00.000-04:00

2006-11-17T16:39:00.000-04:00

i got my tattoo today. it was painful and cathartic, and took about two hours to complete. my tattoo artist, kyle, entertained giselle and i with stories of steroid abuse, pro wrestling, being a make-up artist on movie sets and taking acid with james cameron. when i admitted to liking the feeling after the first half hour, he accused me of being one of those girls who likes to be spanked. i laughed about this and when the work was all finished he cracked me good and hard once across the ass. it was pretty hilarious. i got the impression that he might do this to alot of girls, because after he spanked me i heard someone from out at the front desk yell "that was a good one!". all spanking and acid stories aside, kyle did some beautiful work and i couldn't be more thrilled about it. i'll try to post a picture of it soon.

2006-11-16T09:48:00.000-04:00

all of these places were ours and now the room is full of smoke and i'm sweeping my hands through the empty spaces of where you should be. tom's won't ever be like it was. tom's won't ever be tom's, but something else. something unfinished.

i got so drunk tuesday night. i walked home in the rain and collapsed to the floor upon opening my door. i wrapped you up in your ramones sweater so i could hug you without sharp edges and cold metal. i slept without dreaming.

yesterday i went to another funeral to support a friend and cried about only you. i wonder if it will always be this way when there is death. i worked until close at the killam with only one minor incident. "it wasn't YOUR boyfriend that died was it?" "um...yeah." a line up of fifteen or so goes dead silent and stares. nice. i walked home alone to the apartment full of empty spaces, so obvious that i can designate which places are something and which places are nothing. if i curl up inside the empty spaces, for a brief time, i don't exist and then i can sleep. our bed is the largest thing that isn't. a soft amorphous lump of non-being. it is a vaccuum, big enough for two, and full of no one.

2006-11-13T17:49:00.000-04:00

working last night wasn't as bad as i anticipated. it was nice to feel normal, even if only for a few hours. i even caught myself making witty banter with some of the customers. at least, i thought it was witty. i worked with a cool punk chick named liz, and after talking all night we decided that we should probably be friends. halfway through the night she looked me right in the eyes and told me she was a lymphoma survivor. i had an overwhelming urge to rip my own heart out of my chest and hand it to her, but the feeling past and we had a really intense conversation.

on the whole, today was good. tomorrow is something else entirely.

my tattoo appointment has been made. fresh ink on thursday afternoon.

you spin me right round

2006-11-08T23:20:00.000-04:00

The apartment feels hollow. Like it's been carved out. Is that you I see out of the corner of my eye? Is it your voice that startles me? Am I wishful? Am I crazy?
I need things to fill my time so I've given myself a hefty task. I must listen to every one of your cds, watch every dvd, read every book. I'm too terrified to move beyond your life. I have to absorb as much as I can and take it with me. So far I'm on my second book and I've made my way through the bulk of your punk collection. You were never one to buy a cd based upon its potential sum of listenable hours, or repeat enjoyment. No no. Your collection, I'm discovering is less about owning "good" music, and more about owning "important" music. Music that held a kind of historical relevence or cultural weight. Already I hear the counter argument. Yes, of course many cds can be both important and great. Many Bob Dylan albums fall under both of those categories, as well as The Clash, Blondie, etc. But what about The Sex Pistols? It would be impossible to argue against the importance of "Never Mind the Bollocks...", but it can't be denied that they were a marketing ploy made up of guys who could barely play their instruments. So the album is iconic, but is it any good? "Ill communication", for me, will always be a better Beastie's listen, but it will never, arguably, have the impact of "Paul's Boutique". The more I sift through your collection, the more I realize that historical significance made up a much larger percentage of your purchases than any band currently enjoying mainstream success. Did that make you elitist? Or did you just have a much bigger picture in mind? For someone so mired in the past, you knew more about "the scene" than most of the people actively participating in it. Maybe you couldn't sing any of the songs off the hottest new band's debut cd, but I'm banking that after the first few bars, you could pull out a cd from the depths of your collection that is the root and justification of that new band's sound and existence. (Tell me now, is there any justification to be found for Panic! at the Disco? Let's hope not.) Is everything derivative of everything else? Will I find one little slice of the musical pie that won't force me to say "gee, that sounds just like..." You've left me a hedge maze to crawl through. I might not make it out alive.

Also, I alphabetized the cds. I hope that's cool.

Post-Memorial Thanks

2006-11-05T10:52:00.000-04:00

words cannot express the gratitude i feel for everyone who came out to Iain's Memorial Celebration last night, and everyone who helped to make it happen. The CS Society worked their asses off all night and did an amazing job.

Special thanks to Andrew, Jeremy, Mike and Mindy for bartending, to Mark and Dave and the team at the Info Desk for getting all the technology up and running, to Jon and Geoff for setting up the sound equipment, to Norm for letting us invade his building, and to Seamus for being on his best behaviour (don't think I haven't heard the stories).

The tally for donations to the Canadian Cancer Society was somewhere around $600.

Iain would have been proud.

2006-10-29T10:08:00.000-04:00

in my dream i was so angry.
i could feel rage burning the back of my throat. i was screaming and growling like an animal. i pushed people down and swung my fists into their faces over and over. i destroyed everything i saw and i didn't care. i didn't care. (and maybe it's because i slept curled around that thing that is not quite you instead of your body. maybe it's because i pressed my cheek against cold metal instead of your skin.)

2006-10-26T22:38:00.000-03:00

it's going to be the little things that kill me.

we never got to finish that scrabble tournament. you aren't going to come see the new christopher guest movie with me. and when i laugh out loud at chuck klosterman, i can't lean over and ask you if you found that part funny too. between these moments, i try to live.

2006-10-14T21:32:00.000-03:00

there is no way to say what i want to say to you. and it's too impossible to believe that you're not going to come home. all i can do is love you like you're still here.

you are my light.
you are my song.
i'm beautiful because you loved me.

2006-09-18T13:36:00.000-03:00

i wanted to call people today to go for a walk, but i don't have anyone's new numbers. ben, matt, bianca, etc. you know who you are. send me the new digits.

2006-09-09T08:07:00.000-03:00

there is nothing to say. nothing.

i love everyone and i wish it weren't happening.

2006-08-17T19:52:00.000-03:00

guess who's coming home tomorrow?

fuckin' rights.

and also, i just read through the entire transplant information booklet and it overwhelmed me so much that now i have heartburn. is that possible? i feel like this is never going to be over. i feel like there are a million things to remember and i'll never be able to. there isn't enough time. there isn't enough money. there isn't enough of me. i'm supposed to be there 24/7 for the first few weeks after discharge, but if i don't work full time, there's no money for rent. i'm supposed to be supportive and loving and understanding but i keep having unrealistic expectations that everything will speed right along, like someone hit the recovery fast-forward button. i've been so tired and so stressed-out for so long that i feel like i'm making myself sick, or crazy.

but he's coming home.
that's one step closer. i won't have to miss him so much anymore.

day plus thirteen

2006-08-16T15:11:00.000-03:00

go stemcells go!!

2006-08-12T21:47:00.000-03:00

i spent last night at the hospital on a fold-out cot with a beam that presses into my lower back like a knife blade. it's become our friday night tradition.

the nurses started iain on a morphine drip for the pain in his mouth and throat. i watched his face relax and savored a real smile. i spent most of the night just listening to the humming and clicking of his iv pumps. he has so many now, monitering and dripping and metering that it's like watching the inside of a body, digitized and hung on the outside for convenience. there's even been a new instrument added to the symphony in the form of a wide-suction straw for when iain's throat is too raw to swallow even his own saliva. for hours and hours. humm humm click humm humm click SLURP humm humm click humm humm click SLURP. it was an electronic cacaphony. a vertible rainforest of medical machinery. at three in the morning i got up and wandered the darkened, antiseptic hallways in my sock feet. flamenco music echoed in thin rasps from a radio in an empty room and the elevators lurched and groaned like great slumbering beasts. a nurse asked if i was lost, possibly thinking i was a patient. i smiled at her - it was more like a grimace - and walked the other way.

when i got back to his room, i climbed into bed and imagined an animal for each noise i heard until i fell asleep.

day plus six

2006-08-09T20:38:00.000-03:00

oh it's all happening now. it's all motherfucking happening. the fever and the sore mouth and the body shutting down and resisting and falling to fucking pieces.

it is strange to find comfort in watching your boyfriend go through this, simply because this is what is supposed to happen. we don't want anything out of the ordinary, even if the ordinary is really really bad.

iain's white blood cell counts are really low now and his other counts seem to be following suit. he's still able to eat solid foods for the time being, but will change soon enough. then perhaps a steady drip of morphine to take the edge off, who knows?

iain's doctors seem very pleased with how things are going so far. that's something. that's something.

another something: my sister is home for a few weeks. she brought me back prezzies from vienna and rome. hearts.

2006-08-07T19:55:00.000-03:00

so it's day plus four. (is that where we are now? does that really sum it up?)

the doctors are hovering over iain's bed, waiting for him to have an adverse side effect. just waiting. they tell him it will happen. it's only a matter of time. iain has a rare cancer so he has become a useful teaching tool in the hospital for residents. they bring them in and talk about him like he's not sitting in front of them. he is case study 3226-Y7 and he has no thoughts or feelings or fears about the things you say.

so far, there has been no nausea since the transplant. no rashes. no fever. no swollen mouth. he is eating well and feeling fine, albeit confined to a small space.

we have been told that things are moving according to schedule and that people are 'pleased' with how he looks.

my temporary roommate has gone back to sydney and my apartment is empty.
i broke down this afternoon because the nurses couldn't get iain's iv pole to work properly and his dose of cyclosporin kept stopping it's steady drip of anti-rejection. i can't handle anything going wrong at this point. there are too many variables already. my need to control things has mutated into some interesting paranoia. i just hope i don't start slapping the nurses when they take too long to answer his call button. i need to calm down about things. i've been able to sleep for the past few nights, so that's helping i guess. my insomnia only lasted four days...is that legally insane?

for anyone looking for a coherant update on iain, i'm sorry. i'm not myself and i can't be bothered to structure my sentences well. i'm just trying to stay balanced. the 'what ifs' and 'how longs' come in terrential downpours, filling up my head and coming out in streams of ranting and crying or laughing or frantic cleaning. i run downstairs for skittles and provisions like they actually do something. i wait for the day when the doctors will tell us something that sways in some direction, good or bad. for now it's all limbo, all the time.

i play my guitar, but only songs that inspire me. i skip all the sad songs on my ipod. i derive messages about the future out of nothing and i look for omens in everything i say and do and see and touch.

it all wears you down, in the end.
it all makes you old.

day minus one

2006-08-02T06:05:00.000-03:00

it's almost here. it's like christmas and a terrifying exam that you haven't prepared for all rolled into one.

right now i'm battling some wicked insomnia. it's been three days since i retired to bed without staring at the ceiling for hours and hours, counting the seconds between cars outside on the street and thinking about how much longer until my alarm goes off.

yesterday i crawled in bed beside you at the hospital and slept blissfully for an hour. i guess i'm no good at sleeping alone.

on the upside, i did just find out that i have a three day weekend. woo! natal day!

day minus three

2006-07-31T19:50:00.000-03:00

nausea kicked in promptly before lunch.
i hear your voice on the other end of the phone while i'm at work, trying to reassure me that everything is fine.
it isn't fine, surely, but i've grown accustomed to this by now.
later, i watch the simpsons calmly while you hurl everything you've got inside you into the waste basket beside the bed. you're sides shudder under the strain and your voice cracks, but you, you're a fucking soldier. you never even flinch. not once.
the nurses mix benadryl into your maxoram and i watch you sleep for two hours before dragging myself home.
i kiss your face, all over. hard. i want to leave a mark and i don't know why.
i kiss your face all over.
i am not myself.

day minus five

2006-07-29T23:37:00.000-03:00

brendan is here, sleeping on an air mattress on my floor for the next week.
everything is happening.
everything is getting closer and closer, barreling down.

iain is still feeling well, although his elaborate drug-cocktail of happy drugs to counter-act the chemo side effects have left him logey and a little stumbly. tomorrow is the last day for busulfan, after which there are two days of iv chemo. cyclophosphamide, we meet again.

today i watched seven episodes of arrested development.
i meticulously cleaned my apartment, like it mattered.
i sat out on my balcony in the dark, which is never really dark and the quiet that is really a dull roar of commerce and activity. it is the difference of living in the city i suppose.

i wonder if i'll be able to sleep when this is over.

day minus seven

2006-07-27T22:33:00.000-03:00

chemo begins.

busulfan (the chemo), ativan (anti-anxiety), decadron (a steroid), zofran (an anti-nauseant), dilantin (anti-seizure), heprin (a blood thinner).
pills and needles and bags of clear fluids that seem all too innocuous.

iain's nausea from the last few days seems to have subsided and he managed to get a decent day's worth of food into him. gizelle showed up at supper time with pizza from alexandria's and managed to save iain from a dish that the hospital simply calls "chicken in golden sauce". you know what that means. sub-gravy. probably urine. whatever the case, the pizza arrived with fortuitous timing.

iain's menu for saturday indicated that he would be having "m'balls" for lunch. no no. not meat balls. just the m. say it fast and it sounds like "my balls". "m'balls" in "p'apple sauce"...what could be more appealing?

when i come home at night from the hospital, i keep expecting him to be there waiting for me. i always forget that the door will be locked.

day minus eight

2006-07-26T22:27:00.000-03:00

if the transplant is day zero (like ground zero, but for iain's immune system?), then today is day minus eight.

three hours of drug information. am i fucking glad that i'm not responsible for that schedule anymore. for those not in the know. iain was admitted early into the hospital. because of his "rapidly growing mass" he runs the risk of "tumorlicis" (which i'm sure i've spelled wrong) and is essentially when the cancer is killed off by the chemo so rapidly that his blood counts go fucko.

iain's room in BMT isn't such a bad set up. he has his own tv, for free this time. a nice big flat screen. he also has his own dvd player and stereo and mini fridge. i guess they try to make you comfortable since they know you're going to be confined to a few square feet of floor for the better part of a month.

i put up a ramones poster by iain's bed, but he wouldn't let me put a "castle awesome" sign on his door.

i'm tired and sad and i miss my boyfriend and there's nothing i can do about it. i'm sleeping alone for the rest of the summer. i can't sleep through the night anymore and i can't listen to any music without crying about something. my eating habits have become sporadic and bizarre. yesterday i couldn't eat a meal, but i ate pickled beets out of the jar while standing over the sink. i want to hug everyone i see. i want to slap everyone i see across the face. i want to sleep right now but i can't.

day minus eight and counting.

why my job is fun, reason the first:

2006-07-06T15:36:00.000-03:00

Customer: "What's this 'El Toucan' coffee?"

Me: "It's a dark roast."

Customer: "So why do they call it 'El Toucan'?"

Me: "Because it's made from real birds."

Customer: "........"

Me: "They scream when you grind them."

Incidentally, this person did not order an 'El Toucan'. They ordered a tea and gave me a look that was somewhere between fear and pity. Later, I told a customer that I kept a collection of severed toes. He laughed, but only to appease me.

movin' on up.

2006-07-03T17:42:00.000-03:00

we're in. we're golden. we've slid into home with the bleachers full of screaming people. let me tell you - this apartment is perfect. on moving day we had no less than twelve movers with seven cars between them.my enormous thanks to everyone who got up early on a holiday to help. the whole operation took less than two hours and probably resembled some sort of hostile takeover with armies infiltrating from every side.

on the first night we watched the fireworks from our balcony and enjoyed the fresh(?) breeze off of the harbour.

the next day the elevators decided to be fussy bitches and not work, or perhaps were in service to some other new tentants like myself. no problem, i think to myself. i'll just lug this broken down cardboard and giant bags of garbage down to the refuse room via the stairs, right? right? wrong. while pressing one in the elevator brings one to the refuse room, exiting at one on the stairs leads to an underground parking lot. and don't suggest going to the next floor up, because in that instance, two really does mean two. go figure. in the end, i dragged my mountain of trash through the parking lot and out through mysterious unlabeled door number one. i find myself over the fence in the back of the building by the loading bay. i trample through the carefully planted gardens and find my way though the back entrance to the refuse room, covered in bits of plants and sweating like a whore in church.

aside from garbage escapades, everything is fantastic. our balcony is amazing. our bedroom is huge and our fridge has this adorable wobble everytime i open the freezer. i call him limpy and he is like my son.

when the windows are open, all we can hear are the seagulls scavenging the shoreline.

we should have our phone hooked up by tomorrow and the number will stay the same.
come visit us.

on emotional outbursts, and how to harness them:

2006-06-24T22:26:00.000-03:00

i have this strange sensation behind my eyes that won't go away.

not quite a tingle or a sting or an itch. it's like someone is back there scratching, or maybe even just whispering little puffs of smoke and syllables. but it's there. pestering and perpetual. to remind me that i must remain emotionally taut at all times, because a spontaneous overflow could happen at any moment, with little to no warning at all. i don't know exactly why i'm afraid to let myself cry. probably it's because i think i've done too much of that already and it doesn't really help anyone in the long run. i've filled my tear-quota. to cry more now would be selfish, hogging all the sadness away from orphans and sick babies and lovelorn teenagers. i know that i should make allowances for myself every now and again, but i can't just be crying haphazardly whenever the mood strikes me. that could be wildly inappropriate and possibly embarassing. that would be chaos and i can't have chaos. there has to be some semblance of order. there has to be control or the whole system is going to fall to shambles.

here is what i have found works best: i cry at the gym. this may sound strange to you, but i actually find extremely theraputic. i hop on a crosstrainer, crank up my ipod and when i really start sweating, i sob and sob and sob. the two activities together lead to a total catharsis and i leave feeling calm and relaxed, although often exhausted. and while you might think that openly crying in a public place is grotesque and awkward, i have found that with the droning of the machines, the commonplace acceptance of a red, puffy face and the prevalence of portable mp3 players, no one notices a thing. i could be in another galaxy, but i'm not. i'm completely surrounded. i'm in a room full of strangers, crying in absolute privacy.

2006-06-22T20:18:00.000-03:00

moving day approaches and i already have forgotten where and how i packed everything.
my own place is a labyrinth of my own life condensed, psuedo-organized and fitted tetris-style into cardboard cubes. meanwhile, the hallway at iain's is an ever-narrowing passage of dusty boxes and to-do lists. i'll be glad when it's over.

on the bright side. i've managed to score one of those cushy, leather power chairs for iain's hospital room ( le suite kickass). i'm talking soft supple leather and it not only reclines with the push of a button, but should i feel lazy enough, it will stand me in an upright position without any of my own efforts. as we speak, i am probably depriving some poor, mobility-challenged old woman of her, well, mobility, but fuck her. passing those long, hot summer evenings in a sterile room with weird, droning machinery is now extra comfy.

other news: today marked the first day of my full-time hours at second cup cs. in other words, today marked the beginning of my slow and stealthy takeover. this means no more new age walmartesque country music. no more michael fucking buble. no more smiling pleasantly over the counter at seven in the morning. you want your coffee? come armed my friend. pack two barrels of wit and sarcasm in your holster and anticipate that my trigger finger is going to itch.

two side notes: (one) a hearty welcome to melissa for moving into the city. you're a true haligonian now. have a donair. smell that not-so-fresh harbour breeze. (two) sarah romkey's uncle phil is driving me to tantallon to acquire a couch. he's a customer at my work and he has long hair and sometimes wears a beret. very artiste.

2006-06-18T11:13:00.000-03:00

my brain is making crunching metal sounds.

last night was fun.

2006-06-15T16:48:00.000-03:00

there is much to tell and no words that fit.

things are going as well as can be expected.
a bone marrow match and a fainting scare. i am taught to give you needles at home and i try to encourage good blood chemistry with my great grandmother's banana bread recipe.

with all of this and the added stress and complication of moving, i've got self-imposed blinders. tunnel vision. the only thing i can see at the end is you.

after two weeks of rain, i feel like i've got a whole new skin, raw and pink and screaming under the barreling sunlight. i've got new tunes on my ipod. i've got a list for everyday until forever. i've got you to think about, always. i've got some spare change in my pocket and my best foot forward.

2006-05-27T23:13:00.000-03:00

five days.

six doses of cyclophosphamide. one dose of doxyrubin. one dose of vincristine. (pushed through in two syringes, vile, evil, red poison.) one hickman line insertion. one lumbar puncture. four doses of zofran. four doses of decadron. five doses of allopurinol.

eight solid meals.

seven codiene tablets. four ativan. one mild anxiety attack.

we watch three episodes of csi in a row. you adjust your bed between four and six times every hour. i can finish a crossword in under ten minutes. your iv makes that humming noise every twenty-eight seconds, then every eight, then twenty-eight, then eight. i wear your sweater and drink four cups of tea. (red rose, i cannot drink the shit they have in there, no matter how fucked up things are.)

i wake up a dozen times in the cot next to your bed and forget where i am. i read two hundred pages. i watch you sleep for five hours and take the time to say goodbye to your eyelashes. (i consider counting them.)

2006-05-24T00:50:00.000-03:00

it's all happening and it's all real.
this dark. this pain.
(you know how much i fucking miss you, like i can't stand it, like i can't breathe, but it's better this way. my hands are clumsy and incapable for what's on the horizon)
it's strange to take comfort in the presence of strangers.
because it's not up to me i guess.
except that it is. it's up to me to smile and it's up to me to push and it's up to me to tie the loose ends so that you can focus on you and it's up to me to pick up all the shards that might cut you and it's up to me to find sunlight in the deepest darkest hell imaginable.
it's worse for you, obviously. because this is not about me, and i hate myself everytime i entertain the notion, but i can't help but be human. no one ever stops thinking about themselves, even when their lives are absorbed by helping others. it becomes just that. just thinking. just thought.
but it is so much worse for you. i have no illusions.
it's up to you to fight, believing that you know the outcome. good trumps evil. light swallows the dark and bathes everything in a soft pearly white. you beat cancer. you live. you live and so do i.

i can't even
i just
because it doesn't make sense anymore
it never
but now
i can't

is this fear? is this trauma?
or is this what it feels like to be completely without the luxury of denial?
you tell me doctor.
you tell me.

2006-05-17T11:44:00.000-03:00

there is cancer and there is us.
in the middle, pushing out, making space that's clean and safe and ours.

round two.
i want so much to be brave.
i want so much.
i love you.

even better...

2006-05-04T15:29:00.000-03:00

Iain Gillis --

[noun]:

A hermit living in the big city

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

i am easily amused.

2006-05-04T15:26:00.000-03:00

Kathryn Crooks --

[adjective]:

Visually addictive

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

The Time Is Mao:

2006-04-27T11:43:00.000-03:00

my birthday is this weekend and i want you (yes, you) to come out and make with the party.

friday, april 28th: Stage Nine - Windom Earle and the Jeff Coll Five are sure to be entertaining.

Beforehand, i'm sure i can be found in the shame hut, drinking beer and listening to journey and platinum blonde and dio and whatever else iain has on those cds.)

(please come, pretty please?)

wouldn't you know it...

2006-04-13T15:23:00.000-03:00

downtown halifax on the first hot day smells exactly like a deep-fried exhaust pipe.

an icy cold stella and a good murder mystery can almost mend my shattered plans.

i lost my job today.
but i gained a pair of frye boots.
ask me how.

2006-04-05T08:54:00.000-03:00

In my last dalhousie class we talked about time.
We discussed the difference of being removed from time and being attached to time.
A movie like Shrek, full of pop culture references, is attached to time.
So decades from now, only the truly informed will be able to watch it and laugh.
Remember when there was a Starbucks on every corner? They'll smirk.
How long? How long?
When will Mcdonald's stop being a cultural institution? Starbucks?
We've been hearing the Disney death rattle for years now.
It's only a matter of time before the knowledge and history of one generation is replaced by another.
Contemporary Pop Culture becomes nostalgia. Things kept in books and under glass cases, dusted by a disillusioned minimum-wager who has never heard of Led Zeppelin.

who is this? who cared about this?
i don't know this song. i don't.

There are already those who have never heard of Led Zeppelin.
And so it begins for us.

who are the ramones? who is blondie? what is a "nirvana"?
crazy old woman.
they will say.

jesus. jesus.
they will say i am old.

my mind at rest

2006-03-29T21:24:00.000-04:00

when i'm the most stressed, i can feel it while i sleep.
in the past, when the end-of-term work began to pile up around me, i would dream that i was at work. but not real work. hellish-nightmare work. a job i no longer did. a job that i wasn't very good at. a job i had hated with every fibre of my being.
last summer, when iain was diagnosed with cancer, i dreamt about the greek house.
my days were filled with tests and charts and words i didn't understand, but my nights were filled with dirty tables, ketchup smears, wrong orders and no tips.
every night i became a waitress against my will.
i would dream that i had to take the orders, cook the food, tend the bar and the cash and bus the tables all by myself. i would get everything wrong.
there would be no clean dishes. something would be burning in the kitchen.
i was confused, scared, dirty, alone.
every fucking night i dreamt this. why?
was this my concern while my boyfriend began a heavy chemotherapy regimen? a waitressing job that i had quit almost a year ago? clearly not.
it's all below the surface. it's all just simulacra, right?
an image that is a symbol for a feeling that is not tangible...but i digress.

the point is, i've discovered a new kind of stress dream.
i've begun to dream about my graduation, this coming may.
last night, as i lay less than peacefully in bed, i find myself in my highschool gymnasium. everyone is wearing shimmering gold and red gowns, but i can't recognize any of the faces. blurred and pixelated, like an episode of cops.
i am pushed into a line of people and told that i am late.
late for what? i can't remember.
everyone is staring. then i realize, it's my fucking graduation from kings.
i completely forgot. how could i forget? fuck. i also forgot to go to the rehearsal. double fuck. endless eternal fuck.
feeling frantic, i look down to discover that i had also forgotten to pick up my gown. i am wearing some sort of burlap dress. (in these dreams, this would be the point that i look down and realize i'm naked, so i consider this a lucky detail.)
i look stupid, i don't match, but i go up on stage with everyone else. i figure, i'll just try to blend into the background and get my diploma and get the fuck out of here.

but then the music starts.
it's 'thriller', by michael jackson and the mass of red and gold gowns begins to sway in unison. my nightmare has just worsened exponentially.
there is an obviously choreographed song and dance number that i was supposed to learn in rehearsal and didn't.
i want to get off the stage, but it's too late.
the dance number has started and i must fake the steps, burlap dress and all.
i perform badly.
so badly, in fact, that my diploma is torn up and it is decided that i am not allowed to graduate after all.

which i think is totally unfair.
because with a little more time, i could have fucking nailed that dance routine.

2006-03-22T13:46:00.000-04:00

i just finished my paper for my fairy tales seminar.

which means i'm done all my school work.

which means i'm done my undergrad.

weeeirrrrd.

local mischief

2006-03-21T15:08:00.000-04:00

Someone messed with the 'Help Wanted' sign outside of Tony's Pizza.

It now reads: Elf Wanted
Expert Pizza Cook
Inquire Within

I don't know why, but I thought this was fucking hilarious.

2006-03-19T12:28:00.000-04:00

oh oh oh my god. the rock.
it was ear-splitting, face-melting, pants-wetting rock.
the bartenders called me 'clancy's girl' and laughed at how my face barely peered over the counter top. i felt like a little kid at a grown-up party, but i swore i was legal.
so much fuel leads to so much fire.
and then you came. and you. and you.
and holy fuck i'm excited now motherfuckers.
i spilled a whole draft onto my own lap.
i thrashed until my face hurt.
i could feel the guitar solos in my teeth.
and i know what you're thinking.

that is fucking sexy.

well it was.

2006-03-15T11:58:00.000-04:00

i walk through campus after dark every monday night and this week, it was like they knew. all of them. the buildings. i wouldn't be back. soon enough i would be leaving for good.

i look at them and i don't know what to say.
i feel like we're breaking up, after five good years together.
it's not you, it's me. it's all this time passed.
it's twenty credits and a full transcript and something that someone, somewhere will actually call a degree and it will have my name on it. my name.
we've outgrown each other i guess.
we've fizzled, we've lost that spark that used to excite and challenge me.
we've grown apart, you and i.
you've taught me everything you can teach me.
and don't think i'm not grateful, but
my feelings for you have changed over the years.
i don't trust you anymore.
you don't make me feel safe.
you make me feel worn and old and misplaced.
i'm finished the test but i don't know any of the answers.
i'd like to go back and do this differently.
i'd say the right things and feel what i'm supposed to feel.
maybe then there would have been a chance for us, you know?
but now it's too late.
and i have to go.
i hope you understand.

call me?

2006-03-15T09:43:00.000-04:00

i guess i've been away, keeping my words to myself.
but just last night the pressure finally did me in.
all those words, maturing like wine, bubbled through my cracked, dry lips.
spilled over my feet and left me dirty and smiling.

my boyfriend almost has hair again. almost.

2006-02-18T20:45:00.000-04:00

to the person who did not steal my whiskey last weekend, but rather hid it in the freezer: i extend my gratitude. it's cold out baby and that hobo juice is needed for warmth.

to the girl who rolled her eyes at me for not making her a latte after closing: i extend my apologies. truly, i failed to see your importance. truly, i implore your forgiveness. (subtext: you're a stupid whore and i'll slap you in public.)

to you: i'll explain everything, someday. until then it's all context. it's all syntax and sounds. i'm insane and none of this is real. it can't be.

to the pain: you are real. and for now, i'm keeping you.

2006-02-18T19:21:00.000-04:00

all those fragments of sentences.
my eyes are flickering in the low light and my fingertips drum along my thigh.
there is something about you that i can feel like hot and cold. your words give blow after blow and i willingly turn my cheek towards them.
our conversation is luxurious, sumptuous and fragrant. to listen is to taste every syllable. we have a secret club, you and i. no one sees us at the party. no one hears me laugh. i throw my head back and clutch my bundled sweater closer to my chest.
and i can tell, from a mile away, that i was meant to know you.

(i wasn't there for you. so much later.
perhaps it's better not to fall into such old habits.
but still, sometimes, i imagine that it will be me that saves you.
it will be me that stops your hands from shaking.)

2006-02-03T01:00:00.000-04:00

when i look back, it was the immediacy of it.
it kept us together.
it made us whole.

2006-02-02T23:02:00.000-04:00

i let my fingertips streak across the glass beside me. the engine made a popping noise, off-beat and in mysterious syncopation with the hiphop that thumped and scratched out of the speakers. i pretended to like it as much as you. i nodded my head, knowingly, in my own little-white-girl way. and who even owned that fucking car? with it's red interior that emitted little mushroom clouds of dust upon contact, broken seatbelts and lone side mirror. i sucked on a cigarette and blew smoke at the dusty, red roof.
we had taken the car to the lake at lunch, stripping down behind trees and getting twigs in our shoes. the seats were wet and smelled like rot. you let your hair fall into your eyes while your cigarette dangled perilously from your lips. i watched you from the backseat and dragged my dirty hands across the window. that afternoon, i sat through two classes, remembering your mouth.

2006-01-26T21:32:00.000-04:00

he is always, first and foremost, a voyeur. a surveyor of human behavior.
even as a lover, his words can be harsh and critical. his keen eye.
he holds up the shrewd and twisted mirror of the misanthrope.
he is a beautiful and tragic waste, too intelligent to be smart, too ignorant to be stupid. he sees through life like a series of glass panes that he can put his fist through.

(and in the end, he'll take only one prisoner. only one, and it will be a mistake.)

In the early spring, when the sun's fingers scrape across the ground, you will be able to hear him walk outside and mock the birds for singing.

2006-01-20T20:09:00.000-04:00

it was perfect even then, you know.
there was a week where everything between us was different, but we bantered like nothing had changed. the language of repetition. of habit. the mundane, even.
everyday i was pulled to you like a magnet.
the force of the sun.
i had never chewed my nails, but that spring i bit them down until i tasted blood.
and there was cheap wine. bad talk. all those movies we never wanted to watch.
there was you and there was me.
(plus something else, huge and intangible. a taste in the air like oranges. bees humming around our heads. cigarette smoke that stung my heavily made-up eyes.)
i could feel you like a freight train.
my palms would sweat and i would wonder if you could smell my shampoo on your shoulder long after i had left.

2006-01-09T09:01:00.000-04:00

it was a five hour drive through the rain to get to you. the sky slipped down around the car like a heavy grey blanket.
packed in next to cellophane crinkling old women who talk about their bad knees and their daughters' wedding costs and where are you going today, dear. to see my boyfriend. isn't that nice. isn't that nice.
the smell of ancient make-up. overripe bananas. hairspray and stale cigarette smoke.

i ran through the darkened hallways of the hospital like i was trying to stop something terrible from happening.

and if i didn't know better, i would say you didn't know me.
it's the drugs they have you on.
you are not youself.

i slept on a cot pulled into your room.
the blankets all smell like other people. like bodies.
the woman down the hall is obviously suffering from some delusional episode. she is screaming again. no. lori. no. help. lori. lori. help. no.
i listened to her and to you and to the hum of your mechanical attachments and i wondered if i've ever had a nightmare worse than this.

but i couldn't get anyone to listen.
i couldn't help you.
i couldn't loosen that knot in your brow.

you looked at me fiercely. "it's not home without you" i said.

2006-01-06T09:17:00.000-04:00

this is too hard.
who is being aggressive with nurses and doctors? who is bringing you popsicles? who is watching mythbusters with you?

i don't want it to be this way anymore.

2006-01-04T08:53:00.000-04:00

i miss you most at night.
my hand pushes across the bed into the empty space where your body should be.
i dreamt last night that i was chasing smoke. i'd reach up to grab it out of the air and the force from my hand would only cause it to dissapate.

it was good to hear your voice. i let it fill my head like a heavy glass of wine.
narcotics again? specialists and tests and cultures. they'll figure something out.

and send you home to me.

i feel okay today. yesterday was so much like the other bad days, the anger follows me around like a dog. it should arrange itself more scientifically. if there has already been X amount of pain keenly felt, then an equal and opposite amount of happiness is owed. but newton's laws don't cover my situation and my sense of entitlement. (which is stupid. and childish.)

but today feels different. steady. i'll go to class and the gym and buy myself some new pants. i'll walk home slowly and wonder what goes on in the minds of strangers. i'll seem purposeless. (and then i will call you and the binge begins. before i can sleep, i'll be intoxicated from the sound of your voice.)

important stuff

2006-01-02T08:31:00.000-04:00

the news: i'm in sydney, preparing to leave for halifax within the next hour or so. unfortunately, iain's immune system has landed him in hospital once again, with the sydney regional hospital as the next logical stop on his whirlwind tour. the long and short of it is that he's going to be there for a few days at least, and since my ride and i both have work tomorrow...i have to come back to halifax without him. (there is no sedative for this feeling.)

the plus side: he's set up in a massive private room with it's own shower and shit, since he's on "isolation". this also means that everyone who enters the room has to get gowned and masked up until they look like extras from the end of E.T.

the silver lining: iain was taken for a chest x-ray to look for signs of pneumonia (none) and we learned that both his lungs appear to be clear and heathly. (for those not in the know, the right lung was all filled up with nasty cancer and icky fluid before.)low and behold, the chemo has done its job.

(as for you my love, my only, i'll see you when you're better. and its okay to be apart for a few days. it has to be. i'll take this time to draw three feet of personal space around myself, inside which i can curl up in the fetal position and howl like a mad woman. the kind of woman with more cats than brains. if i am loud enough, you'll hear me, carried over the wind and past your window. make no mistake, that shuddering of glass against frame was me.)

tonight i will dream that you are well.

2005-12-18T18:13:00.000-04:00

the air was that perfect kind of cold and the sky that perfect kind of blue. i walked downtown on a sunday afternoon for no reason other than to walk. i've made the dark corners of coffee shops my haunts once again, spending hours skulking and pouring over my books and imagining new personalities for myself.

i keep staring at blank paper. my restless hands tapping Morse Code onto dirty tables. the pens have all grown eyes and they watch with disdain and malevolence at my own personal failure to create. anything. at all. if i could write i would write because it hurts. because the words slice me open like a gutted fish but just as swiftly force the torn flesh to renew. renew. renew.

(if i could write i would write a manifesto of hope for you. i would clutch smudged manuscripts to my chest and kiss my brilliant fucking fingers for their service and i would pour those words down your open throat like a cool drink.)

aside from all that, christmas is coming. holiday cheer and festive boozing spread like infectious disease and i feel like i'm outside, watching all the goodtimey-warmth through the window. the other night, i sat on one end of the couch while iain was stretched out sleeping, his feet on my lap, twitching, while the wind tapped its bony fingers along the window pane. i was reading A Million Little Pieces by james frey. and he was sleeping unsoundly. and the wind. tapping. suddenly there was music. a party and a group of people upstairs singing christmas carols. they sang and i read and he slept and the wind tapped.

joy to the world

and i read about smoking crack and drug addiction and he shifts uncomfortably.

silent night, holy night

the ghosts of the crack are howling like wolves and the filth and the Fury and vomiting up blood and bile and chunks of stomach. and the wind. the tapping.
and him beside me, filled to the brim with the worst kinds of fucking poisons because it's the only way. sick and getting sicker. the only way.

and with christmas carols droning all around us.
now if that's not yuletide cheer, then i don't know what is.

(and for the record, that saying: whatever doesn't kill you can only make you stronger. that's absolute bullshit. a lot of the time, things don't kill you, but they break you down physically and spiritually. they eat your fucking soul and they leave you empty.)

because it's love that makes you stronger. not pain.
it's love.

2005-12-12T21:38:00.000-04:00

keep talking.
keep talking.
keep talking.
keep looking up.
keep moving forward.
keep your chin up.
keep your hopes high.
keep on believing.
keep on pretending.
keep laughing.
keep talking.
keep talking.
keep talking.
there is only this life. and there is nothing. there is only this life and it's bearing down like a plane about to crash like a head-on collision like a freight train. high speed wreckage that you can see and hear for fucking miles. there is only this life and there is nothing.
i open my eyes and i can no longer see. you scream and my ears ring hollowly. my senses are stopped. wadded up with bits of soft cotton, dead leaves and the bits of string that cling to all the hairs. the hairs stand up on my arms. i pull out handfuls every morning. sympathetic reaction? perhaps.
keep talking.
keep talking.
keep talking.
keep making plans you'll forget.
keep making promises you don't mean.
keep hoping.
keep trying.
keep asking yourself the same questions.
keep looking for the silver lining
and keep talking.
never stop talking. the silence will crush frail bodies like an anvil dropped from the sky. ribcages swing open like old oak doors on rusty hinges. and then that smell. warm and thick and acrid. earthy like moss and sour like decaying fruit. it was good but now it's spoiled. it was good but now it's spoiled. it was good.
spoiled.
spoiled.
spoiled.

2005-11-28T14:04:00.000-04:00

if i sat in front of you and held your face in my hands, would you look at me? i mean really really look at me?

if i wore red lipstick and changed my name to roxanne, would you take me dancing? would you carry my money and my ID? would you tease me about my sexy, yet entirely unpractical shoes? would you tangle your fingers in my hair on purpose? would you pull until that split second before it hurts just a little too much?

if it was still summer and the sky was a lusty purple and threatening a pounding july rain, would you still fall asleep with me in the grass? (and a neil young moon would wake us, howling into our bones, into our loins. our feet would tremble on sharp blades, too cold. too cold for this time of year. a thousand knives edges crushed under our steps.)

I have to keep you this close, ribcages clattering together in cynical applause, even if it hurts us in the end, because there's no one else here. I'm waiting for the day that you begin to associate the good with bad. the love with the sickness. me with it. When you start over, my face will be the trigger on your gun. and that finger of yours is beginning to itch on those cold, dry winter days.

(or maybe it's me. and words have no meaning.)

this old guitar

2005-11-21T13:23:00.000-04:00

this is the way it's supposed to be.
you snoring down the hall, and me in the living room, writing a country song in stolen, whispered chords. i sound like a ghost and i like that.
i finally wrote something. it's not finished. it's not perfect. but it's something, so i feel like i've been switched into high gear.

(can i get a hell yeah?)

i just had to embrace everything that was broken.
pull the shards to my lips and smooth all the rough edges with my tongue.
i just had to taste the blood, and then it could fall together. for a second. for three and a half minutes. long enough to write you a country song.
so simple and ambling. i can hear you sleeping. i can hear the hum of the hospital and the rattle of a pill bottle like dry bones. C. Am. G. G7. and suddenly i'm smiling. chucked gently under the chin by someone who knows how all of this ends and will never lie to me. or tell me about how it all went down for someone else, like it will make a difference. my fingers are bruised and stumbling but it feels good. this old guitar with dead strings creaks hollowly in the dark and sounds like an angel to me.

because this is perfect.
you sleeping.
and my inaudible twang climbing the walls like ivy.

2005-11-14T13:36:00.000-04:00

every time i hear the water pound against the roof i think of your bed and the smell of your skin.

this weekend was everything that i needed it to be. just productive enough to not screw me, and full of socializing and quality time with a special someone. (a special someone, perhaps, who couldn't stop singing the hamster song this morning? hmmmmmm?)

saturday night and the bedroom party. my vision shakes and you tell me to believe that i'm beautiful. my hands are clammy on my knees and chris justifies even the smallest action. merman titties and the sweet honour? i can't help but laugh. and meeting michael, finally. god. i can't even describe. what a breath of fresh air. reciting poetry and wearing only a towel and a lai. lady lazarus. The peanut-crunching crowd shoves in to see them unwrap me hand and foot. The big strip tease. Gentlemen, ladies. the next time i see you, i'll look into your eyes and tell you about the slow, sure collapse of language that happens when you aren't even looking, or hearing, or speaking.

(and you. you will work it out. because you have to. because you're beautiful too.)

(who knew that we fit together like little puzzle pieces?)

Peel off the napkin
0 my enemy.
Do I terrify?----

i wandered in at five in the morning and you were perfect. you didn't mind the time. my eyes. my icy fingers. you made a place for me beside you and warmed me under the covers. you laughed at my shivers and my chatting and loved me. perfectly. only later, out in the sunshine, did i realize how lucky i am. i smiled all day and decorated your apartment with tiny colored christmas lights.

2005-11-10T20:44:00.000-04:00

maybe it was you all along.
maybe what i need can be found in these perfect chemical universes.
shiny like beetles. like jewels held up to my eye.

(do you see? i've made a place here for you and me. where nothing gets in, not even the tiniest thread of light. and sickness is cured with popsicles and love and knowing looks. where my words are smoke, grey and curling into my hair. it's here. in my cupped hands. fingers pressed together so tightly that they shake.)

2005-10-26T08:26:00.000-03:00

that same night, i saw my best, my most delicate words lodged between your excitable back teeth.
you split them like hard candies and fed upon my own small source of velocity.

Disconnected, I am unattached.
An unmade bed
makes me feel like a failure.

maybe you should shut your mouth, your pretty pretty mouth.
then i'll shut mine.
and you'll laugh at my nostalgia
and we'll wonder where the time went
and i'll say i'm not scared
and you'll believe me.

And the ringing in my ears
from playing too loud.
I hear the ocean,
I hear the crowd.

Ava wears purple rubber boots year round
Ava is an atheist-buddist-pacifist-activist-nihilist without resulting in a mass of contradictions.
Ava carries a butterfly knife in her sock and uses it to give herself haircuts.
Ava likes to take photographs of garbage.
Ava has the periodic table tattooed across her back.

2005-10-25T22:17:00.000-03:00

sometimes i think you're beautiful when you cry.
(does that make me a sadist?)

sometimes, by the way you kiss me, i think we could have been lovers in another life.

(does that make me dirty? does that make me wrong?)

2005-10-25T15:27:00.000-03:00

what was it that you wanted out of this?
what was it that i wanted?
i think we've been massively swindled by this world. this city, with its bleeding sunset behind me.
i gnash my teeth and count hours. minutes. seconds. one-half-breath.
everything reminds me of this life. this mess. this city, with its bleeding sunset behind me.
i start each day by shedding my skin and facing the wind, raw and hurting.
(i imagined today what it would be like to wake up and not think about sickness. to leave you sleeping and to make you pancakes while wearing my sexiest lingerie.)

someday we'll get what we want.
this life.
this city.
the sunset.

land of the dead

2005-10-25T09:43:00.000-03:00

this is so weird. that i can spend so much time taking care of you, but when i get sick i have to get as far away from you as possible. i knew this would happen eventually, but i still feel like a fucking leper.

so far, my shift is covered until four. i may have to go back and close.

my apartment is cold and quiet. like dead people live here. and that stain on the ceiling is spreading like ink on paper. (sometimes i come into my own room and don't recognize my own stuff. who the fuck lives here? who owns this shit? these dried corpse remnants of a life?) i tiptoe around like a thief and i hide in all the dark corners. i keep the lights off and i leave everything exactly the way i found it. stealth is so important now. there is no room for sloppiness.

the way the wind comes through the crack in my window frame, it sounds like childrens' voices. and some sort of tortured song. did you smell the winter in the air today? it was there, like damp, icy fingers on the back of your neck. like the promise of perfect silence when everything is encased in ice.

i think i could be everything for you.
if this fucking world would let me.

You knew it was coming...

2005-10-19T13:30:00.000-03:00

the time has come for everyone to go and get their flu shots.

normally, i would never harrass anyone about this, but with iain's immune system on the fritz, it's extremely important that ALL of his friends be vaccinated this year.

so go get poked.
right now.
i mean it.

maybe people can go together, make a day of it. needle parties!(that sounds bad.)
(all joking aside, get 'er done.)

2005-10-16T13:29:00.000-03:00

in toronto the streets are tunnels of traffic and dust, blasting into my face. on the corner of raglin street, a dog stands vigil on the roof of a small market, shaking his jowels at passerbys. the squirrels are black and shiny and as big as most cats. china town is a well-oiled machine with ominous meat draped in the store front windows and the smell of dried fish lingering in the air. young asian boys torture eric clapton blues from sour guitars in the kensington market and religious recruiters are just another kind of street vendor, out to sell god like a hotdog.

in toronto, i wear big earrings and beaded bracelets. i cuff up my jeans to show my boots and walk like i know where i'm going. i stand up on the subway and stare at everything that rushes by the windows. i peruse "food boutiques" and eat almond croissants for breakfast.

2005-10-15T10:45:00.000-03:00

how could i possibly? with this so momumental and that so insufficient? every stupid thing that has ever happened to me has translated into three and a half minutes of open chords and angst-filled lyrics, but not this. not this.

the cancer-suite in a7th minor.
it's fucking ridiculous.
it's impossible and i won't do it.

it's probably the greatest song that i will never write.

2005-10-12T13:33:00.000-03:00

the geek will inherit the earth.

so sayeth the lord.

don't look so damn tragic

2005-09-30T22:01:00.000-03:00

the other night. i miss that so much, you have no idea.
that was honest. that was nostalgia. that was me and a cigarette and a sidewalk to stare at while i fumble over words that i thought about too much on the way over.

we're so fun. i'm glad we always remember that.

i had to work at the killam today for an hour during the lunch rush. i was very much out of my element. i wished bianca would be working because then we could laugh about things that make no sense to anyone else and move too slow and piss off the toronto girls with their dal sweats and their botox and their $300 sunglasses. fuck.
(did i mention that i've been drinking and i miss everyone?)

i've been drinking.
and i miss everyone.
(sometimes i need to be hugged like i'm seventeen.)

it's come to this so slowly. i almost didn't notice.
the fact that i no longer exist.
(have i not been autonomous enough? is this my own fault?)
in the end, the cancer eats everything.
including me.

so be thankful that you're in love
be thankful that you're in pieces
'cause, baby, it's a begger being bitten by this bug
after all you're all young
you're all lethal and young

2005-09-27T20:13:00.000-03:00

i do believe i was just stood up.
what a fucking wench. (i had tea and snacks and everything too. i gave them to the cute boy on the other couch just cause he was there...and cute.)

every now and then this strange feeling washes over me.
i go invisible and i watch all this mad shit go down around me.
i'm just out of reach.
but it's all still happening - slower, now that i can see.
sometimes i try to scream out and stop things.
sometimes i don't bother and just count the casualties as they roll in.

one.
two.
three.

because i'm not really here.
and no one is really listening.

( i called you twice from work today. how the fuck am i going to leave for a weekend?)

2005-09-21T13:13:00.000-03:00

put the pen to the paper and it marks like cutting through skin.

all those days-years-hurts ago, someone told me it would be better. and worth it. all of it. fresh and unmarred and ready for my dirty thumbprint in the corner. but when this is over, it's never really over. those lines will always be there, for me to read between. your smile is still your smile, only different.

lately i've been thinking. mulling over it in my mind. lost weekends and my brain humming like a florescent light while my head lolls back and forth. limp like a doll. i live by sense and no thought. i touch the knees beside me and laugh. i kiss because skin is soft against my mouth. girls huddle together and hands clamp down on the cuff of my jeans. clammy. warm and cold at the same time. all my words are opened up and poured out like a cold drink. all of my muscles are fluid and all of my thoughts are chemical. (can i have it back, now? do you think? that simplicity?)

(because lately, just a little bit here and there and not even close to all the time, i've been thinking that we've been singled out. you and i. privy to the secrets of all things strange and terrible. i can speak a language that no one understands. i could tell a story that would wake people from their sleep, screaming.)

just put the pen to the paper and it marks like cutting through skin. and, you know, those big words actually beat the shit out of me. i'm a doll with cold glass eyes. i'm a marionette. i'm the dead strings on my guitar. i'm tired and old and everything i say sounds broken.

(but it's ok in the end, right? you'll come out the other end whole and perfect. your smile will still be your smile, only different.)

2005-09-16T08:14:00.000-03:00

i woke up this morning with this feeling. in my veins. in my blood. everything is snap-crackle-pop and i'm rushing around like i'm being timed. or chased.
i'm all drummed fingertips and quick darts of the eye, nimble and sketchy like a jungle cat on uppers.

i'm feeling unpredictable. heads up, fuckers.

2005-09-16T00:02:00.000-03:00

sometimes i just need it to be simple.
not packed in a bag.
not stretched between two places and three lives.
not written on a chart.
not pre-planned and listed. not piled up in the sink and corners. not pulling down on my leg and arms and eyelids. not doctors and prescriptions and long words to remember.

i want to go to the market and pick out jams.
i love you.

2005-09-11T22:03:00.000-03:00

it's like i'm blind. eyelids like lead casings. hollowed out and burning from seeing too much pale skin. too much of your ribcage and your sunken cheeks. i stumble around and the air feels like water then fire then water. other times i can see for miles and it's all open roads and sunsets and oh-so-fucking-quaint diners that still sell rootbeer floats.

today you admitted that it annoyed you the way i leave on every light in every room. i hid beneath the blankets and you saved me from that spider in the kitchen.

i want this to hurt like a blister or a cut.
i want this to hurt like a bullet.
but it doesn't. not even close. i don't know what to do with an ache so vast, heavy and dull. grey and shifting. it snags my stomach lining and turns my mouth into a desert of chattering teeth and raw gums. that's the way it is now. me all furrowed and snagged and chattering. you all elbows and knees, sharp bones that i can count one-two-three.